"IT WAS A PLEASURE TO BURN IT was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning."
Activity 2: Author Study Author: Ray Bradbury > Use this link to help with author study below This link will help too: click here for another helpful website.
Activity 3: Vocabulary for Part 1: 'The Hearth and the Salamander': Use the Frayer Model for 8 of the following words for Part 1:
1. stolid (3)
2. compress (5)
3. subconscious (11)
4. incline (22)
5. olfactory (25)
6. proclivity (33)
7. asylum (33)
8. odious (35)
9. stagnant (43)
10. cacophony (45)
11. feign (50)
12. melancholy (56)
13. nomadic (57)
14. serene (59/107)
15. anonymous (64)
Activity 5: Using 6 separate index cards, write 6 questions (1 per card) from the first section of the book on the front of the card. Write your answers on the back. You should create 2 level-1 questions, 2 level-2 questions, and 2 level-3 questions. Label which level question it is on the front of the card. You may use the questions that you've already written from your notes!
Activity 6: Use the Frayer Model for 8 words for Part 2 of the novel. Your choice for this section, but your words should be individual to you. Don't share answers!
Today's QVD should be centered around the Mechanical Hound
Some quotes from the book to consider using (feel free to find your own from the text as well)
The mechanical hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the firehouse.
It doesn't think anything we don't want it to think.
The mechanical Hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the fire house. The dim light of one in the morning, the moonlight from the open sky framed through the great window, touched here and there on the brass and copper and the steel of the faintly trembling beast. Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylon-brushed nostrils of the creature that quivered gently, its eight legs spidered under it on rubber padded paws.
Nights when things got dull, which was every night, the men slid down the brass poles, and set the ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the hound and let loose rats in the fire house areaway. Three seconds later the game was done, the rat caught half across the areaway, gripped in gentle paws while a four-inch hollow steel needle plunged down from the proboscis of the hound to inject massive jolts of morphine or procaine.
"Under the doorsill, a slow probing sniff, an exhalation of electric steam."
Activity 9: Summative Writing Prompt - Find this activity in Google Classroom and turn in finished copy there. Papers should be no less than 1 double-spaced page done in Times New Roman font. Use as many paragraphs as you feel necessary to answer the questions that are posed.
Pick one of the following prompts to write about:
1. Compare and contrast the Mechanical Hound in Fahrenheit 451 to Napoleon's dogs in Animal Farm. Make sure to use textual evidence from both books to support your findings.
2. Consider the symbolism of fire in the novel. Explore passages where fire significantly factors into the story. How does Montag's understanding of fire (and/or burning) change throughout the novel? At the end of the book, Granger looks at the fire and says, "phoenix." How does fire capture both destruction and renewal?
3. Some are disappointed with the ending of the book and the lack of closure with Clarisse and Faber (what exactly happened to them?). Rewrite the ending of the book to include these two characters in some capacity.
4. One theme in this book is happiness vs. discontentment, Are the people in the Fahrenheit 451 society happy? What does true happiness look like? Which characters are happy and why? Evaluate the happiness of our own society. Do we suffer from some of the same maladies that infect the society in the novel?
5. Some other themes in the book include violence, survival, the modernization of technology, and courage in the face of insurmountable odds. Pick one of these and write about how this particular theme evolved throughout the novel. Questions to consider after you've picked a theme to write about - Who did it affect and how? How did a character change over the course of the novel because of this?
6. Don't like any of my writing prompts? Write your own and have it approved by me.
Rubric:
Points Possible
Points Given
Did you answer the prompt? Be careful to answer ALL questions that are asked of you.
15
Does your paper flow well? Did you use effective transitions?
10
Is your voice present?
5
Is your paper free of mistakes? Capitalization, punctuation, spelling (use spell-check)
15
Did you follow the correct format? 12 pt. TNR font, proper heading, double-spaced
"IT WAS A PLEASURE TO BURN
IT was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the
brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world,
the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing
all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history.
With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with
the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire
that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He
wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the
flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up
in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning."
Book Covers:
Students, check this page throughout this unit. Activities and journals will all be posted here.
Click here to download your own copy of the text into Notability.
Click here to download the point sheet for the novel.
dys·to·pia
noun \(ˌ)dis-ˈtō-pē-ə\: an imaginary place where people are unhappy and usually afraid because they are not treated fairly
Activity 1: "Dover Beach:
"The Final Word" poetry activity
Read the poem here
Analysis (Shmoop)
More analysis (Every Book and Cranny)
Activity 2: Author Study
Author: Ray Bradbury > Use this link to help with author study below
This link will help too: click here for another helpful website.
Activity 3: Vocabulary for Part 1: 'The Hearth and the Salamander':
Use the Frayer Model for 8 of the following words for Part 1:
1. stolid (3)
2. compress (5)
3. subconscious (11)
4. incline (22)
5. olfactory (25)
6. proclivity (33)
7. asylum (33)
8. odious (35)
9. stagnant (43)
10. cacophony (45)
11. feign (50)
12. melancholy (56)
13. nomadic (57)
14. serene (59/107)
15. anonymous (64)
Activity 4:
Click here for pre-reading questions.
Activity 5:
Using 6 separate index cards, write 6 questions (1 per card) from the first section of the book on the front of the card. Write your answers on the back. You should create 2 level-1 questions, 2 level-2 questions, and 2 level-3 questions. Label which level question it is on the front of the card. You may use the questions that you've already written from your notes!
Activity 6:
Use the Frayer Model for 8 words for Part 2 of the novel. Your choice for this section, but your words should be individual to you. Don't share answers!
Activity 7:
Click here for Technology Activity.
This is a partner activity; please make sure both names are on the final copy that gets
turned in. Carefully follow these steps:
Activity 8:
QVD (Quote - Visual Representation - Description):
Activity 9:
Summative Writing Prompt - Find this activity in Google Classroom and turn in finished copy there.
Papers should be no less than 1 double-spaced page done in Times New Roman font. Use as many paragraphs as you feel necessary to answer the questions that are posed.
Pick one of the following prompts to write about:
1. Compare and contrast the Mechanical Hound in Fahrenheit 451 to Napoleon's dogs in Animal Farm. Make sure to use textual evidence from both books to support your findings.
2. Consider the symbolism of fire in the novel. Explore passages where fire significantly factors into the story. How does Montag's understanding of fire (and/or burning) change throughout the novel? At the end of the book, Granger looks at the fire and says, "phoenix." How does fire capture both destruction and renewal?
3. Some are disappointed with the ending of the book and the lack of closure with Clarisse and Faber (what exactly happened to them?). Rewrite the ending of the book to include these two characters in some capacity.
4. One theme in this book is happiness vs. discontentment, Are the people in the Fahrenheit 451 society happy? What does true happiness look like? Which characters are happy and why? Evaluate the happiness of our own society. Do we suffer from some of the same maladies that infect the society in the novel?
5. Some other themes in the book include violence, survival, the modernization of technology, and courage in the face of insurmountable odds. Pick one of these and write about how this particular theme evolved throughout the novel. Questions to consider after you've picked a theme to write about - Who did it affect and how? How did a character change over the course of the novel because of this?
6. Don't like any of my writing prompts? Write your own and have it approved by me.
Rubric:
questions that are asked of you.
spelling (use spell-check)
proper heading, double-spaced
Supplemental Readings:
Activity ?: "Harrison Bergeron"
Click here for a pdf of the short story by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Quotes Quiz - Who said what? - Click here to try your luck
Theatrical Trailer:
Teacher resources (where I borrowed most of this unit from):
1. 2. 3.